Communication networks include elements such as base stations and wireless communication devices. Both the base stations and the user equipments include transceivers that allow the base stations and the user equipments to wirelessly communicate, i.e., to transmit and to receive, data in the communication network. When the base stations and user equipments wirelessly communicate mission-critical (MiCri) data, such communications are required to be highly reliable and the error rate associated with such communications is required to be very low. For example, a block error rate (BLER) of about 1e−4 is required for communication of the MiCri data. In addition, such communications are required to be completed with low latency. The present disclosure proposes systems and methods to accomplish the above described high reliability low latency (HRLL) mission-critical data communication.
The MiCri data may be associated with mission-critical applications being used by mission-critical user equipments. One example of a mission-critical user equipment is a driverless vehicle being driven electronically without human input. The driverless vehicle may frequently request MiCri data to learn information regarding other vehicles on the road, traffic patterns, and the like, allowing the driverless vehicle to keep track of its position and be able to react accordingly while on the road. As can be appreciated, the driverless vehicles should be able to receive the requested MiCri data with high reliability and low latency to ensure proper operation and to avoid accidents. Another example of a mission-critical user equipment is a merger unit in an energy system. The merger unit is responsible for collecting and evaluating high-frequency data associated with measured voltage/current values to predict any abnormal conditions that may occur within the energy system, and quickly communicate instruction data to the appropriate unit of the energy system to allow the abnormal condition to be avoided. Again, as can be appreciated, the merger unit should be able to communicate MiCri data such as the high-frequency data associated with the measured voltage/current values and the instruction data with high reliability and low latency to avoid the abnormal condition. As can be appreciated, the present disclosure is applicable to any MiCri data, situations, and applications.